


This Too Shall Pass

by parka_girl



Category: Topp Dogg (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 14:21:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8059663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parka_girl/pseuds/parka_girl
Summary: Depressing break up fic.





	

Seokjin stands in front of the mirror in the bathroom and practices his break up speech. Except he doesn't. Instead, he stares at his reflection in the mirror and wonders how he got to this point. Where in his relationship with Hyosang had things, had he, gone wrong? Or maybe, more accurately, where in his life had he gotten things so wrong? He has no answers to those questions and even if he did, he isn't sure he'd want them. 

He hasn't had a lot of experiences dating. There were a couple of boys and a girl, before Hyosang and another, during the four weeks they'd broken up. Even when they were both enlisted, Seokjin had firmly believed they'd make it and they had. But now ... his thoughts trail off and he can hear his aunt's voice in his head, reminding him that all good things must come to an end. Except, Seokjin thinks as he runs a hand through his hair, his relationship with Hyosang had long since stopped being a good thing. 

Seokjin turns away from the mirror, away from the bags under his eyes, the tiredness that he cannot erase from his face. As he tries to sleep, he replays conversations in his head, things he's said he can't take back, moments of weakness where he'd been unable to break up with Hyosang, where the pain in his heart at the thought of being away from Hyosang was too great to keep him from extracting himself from what all of his friends told him was a shitty and emotionally abusive relationship. 

It's not that Seokjin doesn't want out. He does, desperately. It's that the alternative, the soul-crushing feeling of being alone before the relief and freedom sets in, is too much of a burden. He's always been good at dealing with other people's problems. If they aren't his own, he can see the whole picture. He can give out advice like it was water, like he feeds his friends. He knows what he should do, without them telling him, but he cannot make himself do it. 

He is grateful his friends haven't left him. They are loyal, too loyal. They love him unconditionally and he them, but he knows he tries their patience sometimes. They put up with the tears, the never returned phone calls, the texts to pick him up from Hyosang's flat at all hours of the night. He can see the door quite clearly. It's marked with a huge, neon exit sign. But he cannot walk through it. At least he couldn't. 

But this morning when he woke up, he wasn't so sure anymore. There's no reason for today to be different than any other. He'd gone out with Hyosang the night before and he had, as predictably as clockwork, crawled into bed with his boyfriend. The sex was good, it was always good, and even as he was drifting off to sleep, Hyosang snoring quietly next to him, Seokjin had known he needed to get up and leave and he couldn't. 

Only four hours had passed since they'd crawled into bed together. Seokjin had slept so hard he woke up with a headache. He hadn't drunk last night, though he wasn't sure Hyosang had been sober for much of the night. But the headache loomed over him like a black cloud and when Seokjin had opened his eyes, he hadn't wanted to see Hyosang. He'd rolled over anyway, looking at his boyfriend, and saw two things at once. He saw the man he was in love with, his smooth skin, the sharp line of his jaw, the spot on his neck where Seokjin could bite and make Hyosang moan. But he saw something else, too. He saw the flaws. The mismatched tattoos, hidden from most people. He saw the fights they'd had, the arguments about drinking and whatever else Hyosang kept from Seokjin. He saw their history, mapped across Hyosang's skin and Seokjin didn't like what he saw. 

He turns back to the mirror and looks at his reflection. He doesn't like what he sees. The man looking back at him is Seokjin, Hyosang's boyfriend. He tags along to Hyosang's gigs, makes awkward small talk with the members of Hyosang's crew, and he spends more time wanting than feeling wanted. He wonders absently, as he gathers up the few toiletries he's left in Hyosang's bathroom over the years, why now. Why at five AM when it's dark outside, when it's cold and chilly and there's probably frost on the ground. He has no answer, but like so many questions he's asked himself, he doesn't really want to know. 

He grabs the few personal items from the bathroom and walks into the kitchen. On the table is his backpack. He dumps the contents of his arms into it and then looks around the kitchen. There is so much of him here. Hyosang doesn't cook, but Seokjin does. There are so many of his things here, but if he thinks about it, he has most of them at his own flat, too. There is one thing, though. He pulls open a cupboard and pulls out a pan, it's beautiful, expensive and Seokjin had given it to Hyosang as a gift. He'd known Hyosang wouldn't use it, but Seokjin had been dreaming that one day they'd move in together. He shoves it into the backpack with a possessiveness that should surprise him, but doesn't. 

There is nothing of his in Hyosang's tiny living room and so he switches the light off and moves on. The bedroom, where Hyosang is sprawled, unmoved from when Seokjin left him fifteen minutes earlier, is harder. He has clothes in this closet, items he does not want to leave. He does not turn on the light. Instead he grabs his phone off the nightstand and with flashlight mode on, he slowly begins to go through the closet. 

In the end it's not as bad as he feared. Maybe he'd overestimated how much of his clothes were here or maybe he'd been subconsciously taken stuff home, regardless of why, there were only five things he wanted. A pair of shoes he'd forgotten about, two hoodies, a pair of skinny jeans and a t-shirt. He'd wondered what happened to it a few weeks earlier and just assumed he'd left it somewhere. He manages to fit everything else, but the shoes, into his backpack. 

Back in the bedroom he dresses quietly, shoving his phone into his pocket. He doesn't know why he won't wake Hyosang. If he breaks up with him this way, he's the asshole, but he's waiting. He walks back into the kitchen, grabbing his backpack and the shoes before stepping into the hall by the door. He finds his own keys and pulls the key to Hyosang's flat off, holding it in the palm of his hand. After a moment he picks up Hyosang's keys and is in the process of removing his key when he hears something. He looks up. 

"Seokjin?" Hyosang asks sleepily. He rubs his eyes and Seokjin wonders why he doesn't feel anything anymore. 

"I ..." He starts and then begins to falter. He twists the key in his hand and just when he's about to put it back and make up some story, the key comes off in his hand. 

"Are you going somewhere?" Hyosang asks, soundly more alert now. 

Seokjin looks at his hands, his keys in one and Hyosang's key to his flat in the other. He looks at the floor, where his shoes, the ones he was taking with him and the ones he'd worn the night before, are sitting next to his bulging backpack. He looks back up at Hyosang, who is watching him, waiting. 

"Yes." He says, suddenly. "I'm leaving." 

Hyosang looks confused and then looks at the clock hanging on the wall. He squints at it. "It's ... it's really early. Come back to bed." 

Seokjin can feel the weight crushing him, he can feel the oppressive loneliness start to worm it's way into him. He holds Hyosang's gaze, he can feel that, too. The confusion that will soon change to pain, the hurt that he will inflict. He bites the inside of his cheek so hard he draws blood. 

"No." He says, quietly, and then before he can back of this, he spits the words out, slow without being deliberate. "I'm leaving. I'm breaking up with you." He does not stumble over the words, though his heart is trying to beat out of his chest while feeling like it's breaking. 

"What?" Confusion in Hyosang's voice, mixed with a hint of anger. 

"We're over." Seokjin says, shoving his keys into his pocket, along with the spare he'd taken form Hyosang's keychain. He drops the other key, the one to Hyosang's flat, into the bowl along with Hyosang's keys. He doesn't look up, instead he grabs his shoes, the ones he wore the previous night, and pulls them on. He grabs his jacket from the hook by the door and pulls it on too, then hoists the backpack onto his shoulders before finally bending down to get the other set of sneakers. Only then does he look up. 

He never should've. There is heartache mixed with the same anger as before. Hyosang looks wounded in his own beautiful and unique way. Seokjin can feel himself start to waver, even though he knows better. He tries to push the feelings away, but it's so hard. 

"You're ... why?" Hyosang asks. 

Seokjin feels the lump in his throat, the rip that goes through his heart. "Are you happy?" He asks, but does not wait for an answer to the question he already knows. "I'm not." He says, pushing forward before Hyosang can reply. "I thought I was. I thought ... whatever, I was wrong. You're unhappy and I'm unhappy and we're not together anymore." 

Hyosang says nothing Seokjin thinks he can see the tears glittering in Hyosang's gaze. He watches Hyosang swallow and when he wants to turn away, he makes himself stop. Something changes in Hyosang's face and Seokjin recognizes instantly what it is. He knows that the next words out of Hyosang's mouth are going to hurt him, they are going to rip him to shreds and destroy him. He knows Hyosang loves him and never wanted to hurt him, not really, but none of that is going to matter. Seokjin wants to turn away now, tries to do it, but cannot. Instead he backs up, toward the door, fingers fumbling with the locks. 

"My crew never liked you." Hyosang says and there is so much bitterness in his voice that even if it wasn't true, Seokjin wouldn't know if Hyosang was saying it to be mean or because he meant it. "They kept asking me to break up with you. Said you were dragging me down." Hyosang looks like he wants to take the words back as soon as he says them, but it is too late. This argument had almost happened so many times and now it was. "Guess they were right." 

Seokjin knows he's supposed to say something, to defend himself, but he has nothing to say. He feels the tears start to build behind his eyes, he knows how this will go, but he can't stop it. The tears slip out without him meaning to and when he looks at Hyosang's face, he can see that he, too, is crying. 

"You ... you ..." Hyosang tries to say and Seokjin knows he's trying to be cruel but he can't. The words he said before where someone else's and while they have destroyed a part of Seokjin he hadn't even known existed, they were not entirely wrong or right, but they were not Hyosang's. 

"I'm going." Seokjin makes himself say. He turns now, the tears leaving streaks down his face. He unlocks the door and pulls it open. 

He hears Hyosang calling him, hears his name. He doesn't stop, he doesn't turn around. He has to keep walking. It's almost dawn when he steps outside of Hyosang's building. His phone, in his pocket, vibrates almost constantly but Seokjin ignores it. Instead, he lets himself sob, ignoring the looks that the early morning residents of Hyosang's neighborhood are giving him. 

The sobs are near constant and he feels like he's dying. When he gets to the metro stop, he has to lean against the wall, doubled over because the hurt he feels is so real. He barely pulls himself together to get onto the train. It takes him twenty minutes to get back to his flat, but something about the hum of the train lulls him into a stupor and when it stops, depositing him at his own stop, the early morning blueness pushes through him. He stares up at the sky, there are soft white clouds, a hint of snow in the air. Seokjin takes a deep breath, and then another before beginning the short walk to to flat. And then, all of a sudden, he remembers that this too shall pass.


End file.
